immediately reproaching herself for this outburst,
she added, "No, no! I ought to accept with thankfulness all that Thou
sandiest me. Forgive me for these complaints, or punish only myself!"

"Be of good courage, mother!" said Mother Bunch. "Agricola is innocent,
and will not remain long in prison."

"But now I think of it," resumed Dagobert's wife, "to go to the
pawnbroker's will make you lose much time, my poor girl."

"I can make up that in the night, Madame Frances; I could not sleep,
knowing you in such trouble. Work will amuse me."

"Yes, but the candles--"

"Never mind, I am a little beforehand with my work," said the poor girl,
telling a falsehood.

"Kiss me, at least," said Frances, with moist eyes, "for you are the very
best creature in the world." So saying, she hastened cut of the room.

Rose and Blanche were left alone with Mother Bunch; at length had arrived
the moment for which they had waited with so much impatience. Dagobert's
wife proceeded to St. Merely Church, where her confessor was expecting to
see her.

CHAPTER XLVIII:

THE CONFESSIONAL

Nothing could be more gloomy than the appearance of St. Merely Church, on
this dark and snowy winter's day. Frances stopped a moment beneath the
porch, to behold a lugubrious spectacle.

While a priest was mumbling some words in a low voice, two or three dirty
choristers, in soiled surplices, were charting the prayers for the dead,
with an absent and sullen air, round a plain deal coffin, followed only
by a sobbing old man and a child, miserably clad. The beadle and the
sacristan, very much displeased at being disturbed for so wretched a
funeral, had not deigned to put on their liveries, but, yawning with
impatience, waited for the end of the ceremony, so useless to the
interests of the establishment. At length, a few drops of holy water
being sprinkled on the coffin, the priest handed the brush to the beadle,
and retired.

Then took place one of those shameful scenes, the necessary consequence
of an ignoble and sacrilegious traffic, so frequent with regard to the
burials of the poor, who cannot afford to pay for tapers, high mass, or
violins--for now St. Thomas Aquinas' Church has violins even for the
dead.

The old man stretched forth his hand to the sacristan to receive the
brush. "Come, look sharp!" said that official, blowing on his fingers.

The emotion of the old man was profound, and his weakness extreme; he
remained for a moment wi